Chapter Text
At hearing her words, he slammed his eyes shut, shuddered, then sighed deeply. His whole body stilled as he turned away, seeming to huddle into himself.
Rey closed her eyes, whisked away once again--transported back in time. She went gladly...willingly.
“At night, desperate to sleep.” His words, his voice had both frightened and comforted her. “You imagine an ocean. I see it. I see the island.”
That very memory of her once-enemy was deeply etched into her mind...her very soul.
Looking down at him now, Rey wanted to cry. This once-terribly powerful, dominant, virile, man who terrorized the whole galaxy had now been reduced to this. He was no longer her enemy; he was in distress and needed her, even if he did not wish to.
They had once shared a connection… a very deep connection. As Rey reached out now, brushed against and reconnected with his conscientiousness, his force energy, she felt him as he reached back.
His mind touched hers once again. He touched her heart.
She leaned down slowly and began to lightly kiss his scars one at a time. Rey let her soothing lips travel tenderly across the bridge of his nose, his cheek and chin, tracing tenderly along the pulled, stretched, and torn skin. It was so gentle, intimate, and yet sensual.
At first, he stiffened and grasped at his cloak in a death-grip, clutching it tightly to his chest to keep from trembling.
“Kylo.” Rey whispered softly in his ear.
She caressed him. Her hands lightly threaded through his hair as she marveled at him, wide-eyed. Placing her hands over his large fingers, still clinging to his cloak, she urged them free to reveal his tunic, tugging it loose as his grip relaxed. She pulled apart the clasp and opened his tunic to reveal his bare chest.
She sent him a ribbon of calm, reassuring energy, wanting him to feel that she held no revulsion towards him in her heart. Through the spark of vibrancy along that ribbon she received from him in return, she felt his acceptance.
Rey gently removed the fabric binding him, watching his lips as they steadily moved, though he made no sound. Before long, he was stripped, naked and vulnerable before her. Tears flowed freely from his fragile, soul-bearing eyes when she finally saw the full extent of the damage. It was evident after she freed him from the confines of his tunic.
The softest murmur emanated from him. “Rey please...don’t.”
She now knew why she had come to this Temple, finally understood why Mustafar had been calling to her. It was not for some relic, an artifact, to unearth some long-lost Sith secret, or even to find a missing treasure of Darth Vader.
This was destiny. She was meant to find him. She knew it.
“Sssshh…” she cooed to comfort him.
Again, he brought his scarred and wrinkled hands up to hide his face from her. Rey bundled up his cloak and tunic, placing the makeshift pillow beneath his head. She then carefully pulled his hands down and tucked them to his side, pleased that he allowed it.
With great tenderness, Rey lovingly rested her hands on his shoulders and laid her cheek upon his chest. His heartbeat grew faster and the relentless pounding was comforting to her.
Taking a breath, she returned to the same ministrations as before, and began kissing him once more. She kissed him softly and sweetly all along his neck, chest, and torso… on each and every scar. Although he would flinch and his breathing became unsettled occasionally, he seemed much calmer.
Drawing one hand back to cover the wound on his bandaged leg, Rey began her efforts there. Knowing it would be quick work, she believed, since the older scars would be much more difficult to heal.
His eyes widened as his skin began to tingle and subtly rose up to meet her lips. She moved tentatively, purposefully straddling his waist and placing her palms flat against his stomach. Closing her eyes and slowing her breathing, she summoned forth all the healing force energy she possessed within.
Her force energy flowed around and through them both in such a wave of energy that it totally enveloped them. It coursed throughout the whole chamber, whirling all along the walls and the ceiling high above.
Rey threw her head back suddenly and reveled in the immense power that poured between them. She focused every ounce of her healing into his body. She gazed down at Kylo lying supine, his eyes wide and wounded, his scarred face flushed with wonder.
There was an iridescent glow that seemed to cause a silvery sheen to glimmer through the subcutaneous layers of his skin. It was barely visible to the eye, but bound to him through the tide of energy coursing through them both, it was plain to her.
After a time, Rey released her palms from his abdomen and allowed them to travel up to his neck and throat, where she cautiously cupped his jaw. He gasped once more, and his breath hitched deeply in his chest at the touch of her wandering fingers.
Kylo’s whole body shuddered, immersed in a glow of warm, comforting pulses from the force ebbing and waning.
Wholly absorbed in him, Rey felt a different energy surge all along and through their bodies while her hands moved steadily up to his face. Something slight trickled in her mind like subtle drops of rain.
It was his signature once again. She sensed a faint trembling… a small strand pulling along their connection within the force. It tugged lightly at her mind, then at her body, sending shivers along the very surface of her skin. She had felt this once before, barely present but teasing her--
It was Need.
Gingerly, her index finger barely brushed his brow where the oldest scar lay-- the mark she herself had given him. Then a very large, shaking hand rose up to grab her wrist.
Their eyes connected, fixed upon each other. She saw something somber yet fierce within the depths of his soulful brown-and-amber-flecked eyes. It seemed to ask...no, demand something of her. Assured now that he was indeed the same man trapped beneath this frightening visage, this hideously deformed monster, she delved even deeper.
“Rey, I wish to keep that one,” He spoke slowly and plainly, pulling himself up onto his elbows, eyes never leaving hers.
She nodded. “I understand.”
Rey caressed his pale, scared forehead, lightly brushing the dark matts of hair back as best she could. Not entirely certain what little, if any restorative work her force healing had achieved, she attempted to smooth away his worry.
The man she believed to have been lost was now found and his request opened up something within her that had long been held under careful guard.
Pulling back, Rey shimmied down along his thighs. She tore away from his gaze and allowed her eyes to follow the path of his scar to his bare shoulder. A frisson of awareness swept through her heart and mind, and she offered him another knowing nod.
Settling herself astride him, she felt Kylo straining against her, the sudden firmness of his arousal warming her very core.
His already closed eyes seemed to squeeze even tighter, and he released a barely audible moan. Bringing her right hand back up to cup his jaw tenderly, Rey leaned down to him and pressed her mouth to his.
Her lips tingled as she slid them against his own and she felt him shiver at her lightest touch. Delicately, she delved, probed her tongue into his warm, waiting mouth, brushing wet along his. It was the sweetest kiss she could ever have imagined.
They savored each other, as though-- a dream long unrealized. Disbelief lay in his gaze, and Rey knew he reveled in the sheer sensation, just as she did. Watching him shut his eyes as tiny spasms quaked throughout him, she could tell he attempted to restrain himself. She willed him to open them again to see that their reality far surpassed that dream.
She felt his strong arms rise up and embrace her tightly. He pulled her in so close, as if letting her go meant losing her forever.
Rey sighed as she broke their kiss, bringing her cheek to his. She laid there panting, snuggled against him. She was consumed with a longing she had never known, and Rey clung to him.
A great warmth enveloped and wrapped them both up, and it seemed to billow outward to the walls of stone and up to the ceiling of his chambers. An even greater heat now emanated from them both; it pulsed and vibrated. Her aching center throbbed for him as she urgently ground along his now-throbbing, hardened length. Rey wrapped her arms fully around his neck so she could draw him up further to face her.
Kylo moaned beneath her and Rey ached to have him--ached to have all of him. She pulled him back into another kiss and this one was much wilder and more passionate. Sampling the taste of him again, she whimpered into his mouth, striving to give him as much pleasure as she was taking. He returned her kiss’ vigor, earnestly nipping at her lips and lapping at her tongue.
She could sense Kylo’s wonder and amazement at her eager, unbridled seduction. His steady but hesitant thrusts up into her drove Rey mad with want as she ground against him and the fabric separating them. It ignited an urgency within her, and she slid her hand down between them to find his fastenings at the waist of his pants.
Brushing along the surface of his hyper-sensitive, marred skin, Rey strummed and played the pads of her fingertips all along his abdomen, then down into the fine hairs peppering the trail leading to his manhood.
He went rigid, struggling to stifle and control his reactions. Rey withdrew her hand, then placed it flat upon his navel, sliding along the newly formed rivulets of perspiration there. She glanced at him trying to exercise patience and restraint of her own. Blinking at him she shared with a silent, soft request deep within her hazel eyes.
“You’re still holding on. Let go…”
With his heart pounding, Kylo took her hands away and replaced them with his own. She rose up, missing their friction immediately, to allow him to inch his pants down slowly--first baring his right thigh, then his left. Rey watched his progress fondly as she shimmied out of her leggings, attentive to him.
Uncertain, Kylo’s eyes never left hers when he freed his member, hands trembling as he stroked himself tentatively. He stopped for only a brief moment, as if searching for permission, before his arms gripped her thighs, then slid her hips up as he lifted Rey back up onto his lap once more.
Her hands resumed the work of his, lining him up to her entrance and then she steadily slid down to sheath him completely. Both gasping, they resumed their dance… slow at first, then increasing in rhythm and tempo.
Rey wanted him to possess all of her.
Her hands slid up his neck to thread her fingers through the knotted waves at the nape. It was clearly a sensitive area, she realized as he seized, then shook under her touch. Grinding harder against him, she continued to hold his gaze and watched him tremble in her hold.
With another deep, wet kiss, she emboldened him further, and Kylo’s hand left her hip. He mirrored her movements and dared to comb his fingers affectionately through her hair. The mere sensation of her soft locks flowing along his wrists fueled him even further.
His warm breath blew into her ear like a revelation as their pace quickened. Rey broke away from his lips and threw her head back as a pressure grew deep inside her, whimpering.
Almost instinctively, he rolled his hips from side to side, and it touched Rey in new ways she’d never felt before. His mouth barely opened to form a wisp of an “Aaah,” involuntarily uttering it over and over.
She whined, pulsing around him, pulling him deeper and deeper. The heat coiling within her was reaching a precipice. Rey’s fingers and toes began to tingle and went numb, as her orgasm rose up her body in raging waves.
Lost to their passion, now crashing down over them both, Rey started to unravel, and she couldn’t help noticing him begin to thrust faster, chasing his own release. Kylo pushed up into her with an urgency, gripping with hands that were now hotter and rougher. Grasping her shoulder, he wrapped himself fully around her in total possession. It spurred her even further.
Rey shuddered as she cried out her climax. She saw his eyes widen in amazement at the sight of her ecstasy, as though he couldn’t believe that he was responsible for bringing her such pleasure.
Chasing after hers, Kylo growled out his spend with tiny spasms fused with a final thrust. Finally, the two collapsed back onto the bench. Entwined, they panted hot, uneven breaths in unison.
They lay together swept away in the idyllic afterglow. Soulful, satisfied, contented.
All at once, she felt his chest shudder beneath her and a low, ragged rumble began to build gradually. His entire body wracked and convulsed as he buried his face in her shoulder. It signaled to Rey what she already suspected and was keenly aware of--he was sobbing faintly.
After wiping his eyes and nose with the heel of his palm, Kylo nuzzled further into her neck as he wept the tortured years out against her love-warmed skin.
“How could you...why would you want… me?”
“How could I...? How could I not? Kylo...” Rey brushed his hair back again softly, leafing her fingers through it with the greatest of care. “We are bound… You and I.”
She breathed unsteady against his forehead, giving him a tender kiss as she traced her fingers delicately along his uneven, gnarled skin.
You were always meant for me...and I was always to be yours.
****
While Rey searched the lower chambers of the temple for her supplies, most likely stolen by her fallen opponent, Kylo buried the remains of her assailant. He thought to suggest that she look for them in the darksider’s ship on the surface. He slowly rose to stand fully-- his body responding strangely to his commands and he lumbered down the corridor to his quarters.
The moment he entered, Kylo headed straight to the loosened floor tiles by his bench. There, he pulled out another brown satchel. It was identical to the one he had filled with Spark Roaches for her.
In it, were his only few treasured possessions--his old saber, pieces of his broken helm, his grandfather’s helm, and the remnants of his grandfather’s burned and tattered Jedi robes. He hadn’t looked upon any of them for several cycles, and a sigh fell heavily from his lips. Underneath the items, at the very bottom of the satchel, there was a mirror.
Peeking out from under the hood of his robes, his eyes ran hesitantly over the mirror. It was very old, badly cracked and lay encased in a heavy black woolen cloth. Drawn to it, he smoothed his fingers nimbly along the fabric. Fear rose inside him. He could not recall the last time he managed to find the courage to look at himself. Even then, all he’d seen was his accursed Master.
Irony lay there -- in that very notion. He had become what he despised most. The cracked, crooked lines of broken skin, filled with discolored gashes that still haunted him transformed him into the very man who’d rendered him thus.
There was a gnawing in the pit of his stomach, and he took in a sharp breath as he unwrapped and raised the broken mirror up to his eyes. Kylo saw himself for the first time in ages. There were very few bits and pieces of the man he once remembered himself to have been, that stared back at him from the broken slivers and shards of cracked glass.
Damned, cursed, doomed, horrid, foul, and detestable... all were words that echoed loudly like constant angry shouting in his mind. The litany continued -- horrifying, revolting, and disgusting. He had never heard those things from others, though. In all his isolation, it was clear those were things he told himself.
Suddenly, there was a new presence in the room. He felt her and sharply whirred around to find Rey standing in his doorway.
She found him crouched over the empty satchel; it’s contents were strewn about the tiled floor. Cramped and confined, it appeared meager and ascetic. A simple fire pit lay in the center of the small chamber, long left unused. Another stone bench that was in the corner served as his cot, and there was also a spare cloak and tunic hanging from a single pin on the carved stone wall.
“This is where you live?” she asked.
He spoke just barely over a whisper, “Yes.”
Huddling over his belongings, he scraped at the floor in an attempt to gather them all in a heap, then return them safely to their hiding place.
Rey dropped her bags just inside the threshold and gestured to them. “Found them all up on the surface. They were in her ship.”
Her weak grin that seemed an attempt to ease his tension and obvious embarrassment fell quickly.
“Why did you stay all this time?” She stepped over to him, closing the distance between them.
“Was my punishment.” His words left his lips, tone conveying how he had easily accepted his condemnation.
“During the war?” She could tell it still pained him greatly to speak of it. Rey sat cross-legged at his feet looking at him attentively. “The war has long since ended.”
“What of the First Order?” His whole body tensed, eyes darting to hers sharply.
Rey lowered her eyes, answering carefully, “All dead and gone… all of the High Command. The Storm troopers have all been re-acclimated into the society of the New Republic.”
She bit her lip, Kylo could tell Rey was hesitant to continue. It was easy to see as she grew more tense that she was struggling to broach the next topic. Obviously, it was something difficult and that she dreaded.
“The General...I mean Leia, your mother. She--she, well, she…”
Kylo leaned down closer to her, placing his hands along her thighs, and stared into her eyes tenderly. “I know, Rey. I-- I felt her.”
His face was close enough to hers that their noses nearly brushed. She added. “We fought side by side, your mother and I. And I loved and respected her very much.”
“Hmmm…” He looked away to the bare stone wall. Distant, his mind drifted as his heartbeat slowed. The silence was deafening.
Kylo shakily turned back to her. Apprehensively, he crouched down beside her, then in gratitude, took her hand in his.
“Thank you.”
****
The next few days, their interactions were easy, and communication came naturally. He watched Rey busy herself daily by continuing to explore the caves and tunnels, and focus on many of the temple’s relics. This day, she had spent the afternoon scavenging the ship of her fallen foe up on the surface.
Kylo found he had begun to lose interest in his duties and responsibilities. Barely any remnants of his burns, scars, or extenuating bodily damage remained. His strengthened, even gait proved Rey’s healing successful. He never once returned to his mirror; he simply knew. He had changed inside and out.
She changed him. No one had ever shown him such kindness or compassion… such care.
He grew accustomed to having Rey near. She had completely moved into his heart. Often, they would play a game where she teased him to come with her to the surface, though Kylo always refused. Laughter would ensue.
Laughter -- what had been a lost pleasure, something others engaged in, had now become quite commonplace.
Kylo truly loved her, and how she filled his life with new meaning. Imagining a life together consumed his thoughts daily. Although deep down he felt undeserving, he desperately wished that Rey wanted the same… that she wanted to stay with him.
When she returned to his chambers later that evening, he gathered the courage to ask her outright, “Rey, do you wish to stay?”
Stunned, she only took a moment to consider.
“No, I have no place here in a Sith Temple, Kylo. I had hoped that you’d want to come with me.” Her eyes drifted to his, observing the sheer love and appreciation conveyed in the smooth, mended pale skin of his face.
Confused and conflicted, he stood slowly while he fought his internal battle silently, at first. He turned away from her, saddened by her response.
“But you don’t understand. I can never leave this place. And I never will.” His shoulders slumped almost sorrowfully, and Kylo lowered his head, forcing his chin to his chest. “Don’t you see? I am chained to this place -- I am condemned.”
His fists clenched tightly as he turned his back to her in disappointment and frustration.
“You’re not! You are no longer bound to this temple. You’re free …Kylo.” Rey wedged herself between him and the wall so he couldn’t look away from her. She smiled softly, bringing a slight crinkle above the bridge of her nose.
He lifted his eyes to look at Rey and held his breath.
She urged him with, “Free to come with me...”
It was the most natural thing, innate. She invited him, reaching out her hand.
“Kylo, we are bound, you and I. Remember...?”
Rey’s extended arm floated up toward him, seeming to displace each and every molecule in the room separating them. Her thin, tapered fingers reached out, straining toward him.
His heart burst with something he barely recognized as joy, and he simply melted. A lone tear flowed through his heavy lashes and trickled down his cheek. As Kylo reached down, grabbed up and threw his satchel over his shoulder, he lovingly offered Rey the most genuine smile in return and then...
He took her Hand.
****